From Nan Hickman's blog:

The Japanese are living our future. At CEATEC, the annual Japan high tech show, they tease us with it. Take a look at the Fujitsu concept phone from CEATEC 2009: the Ameboa.

It looks like a piece of crystal and changes its display to a keyboard to an internet browser to controls. There are buttons on four sides of the phone to change modes.

Apparently Fijitsu's been experimenting with liquid displays. Take a look at the Chameleon, which changes it's appearance to whatever it is placed against. Great. Now I'll have more ways to lose my phone.... But it's a beautiful idea none the less. Now Anna Wintour can get that fur phone she's always wanted.

Another phone by Fijitsu and DoCoMo, the Separate Keitai by had a two piece keyboard and phone, which I think I've seen before in a Microsoft concept ad. Two piece is handy for when you need to talk while keying, but personally, I prefer the nubby keyboard.

But if I'm looking to the future, I'm lookin' for nub in all the wrong places, because apparently, Sony is going to kill the keyboard. Check out this flexible display:

But if you are too lazy to actually touch your phone,  music player, Hulu session to change the tune or show...NTT DoCoMo invented headphones that respond to your eye movements as controls. These would not work well on your actual phone calls, because if you rolled your eyes at something someone said, you'd hang up on them.

So, if you believe the Japanese Tech community, soon we will be talking into our crystal phones, seeing flexible 3D displays, and controlling things with our eyes. Oh, and there will be robots.  Oh, yes, there will be robots. And they'll probably need their own mobile phones.

Twitter@nanhickman